


Old Fashioned

by cityofzaofu (Jayzao)



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe- Mafia, Baavira AU Week, Dirty Dancing, Drinking, F/M, M/M, M/M alluded to, Sexual Content, baavira - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-05-30 22:38:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19412842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jayzao/pseuds/cityofzaofu
Summary: Baavira Week: Day 6 - MafiaBaatar is a creature of habit. Not that there's anything wrong with that.





	1. What We Always Do

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in a LoK Mafia AU universe created by larissel. 
> 
> Club Zaofu is a club that's own by Suyin Beifong, head of the Beifong Clan and one of the Big Three that has control over the city. The others are Izumi and Asami. Izumi handles politics, swaying he mayor and everyone working in the council. Asami manufactures weapons- she took over the company after her dad was been arrested. The Beifongs handle shipping.
> 
> Kuvira is Suyin's head bodyguard who's also her lead dancer. She dances on stage, keeping an eye out on the crowd to see if anyone is causing trouble; hell will pay if she sees any. 
> 
> Baatar is the bartender- he assists Kuvira interrogations since he's skilled with knives as a surgical tool, knowing the right spot to cut for maximum pain, minimum blood loss.
> 
> Wing and Wei are the other bodyguards. Opal is a waitress who listens on to the customers, passing info to her mother. Huan is the DJ. Baatar Sr. is the only normal one; he just promotes the club and makes sure everything is organized. 
> 
> That's most of what you need to know for now. 
> 
> Also this is my first time writing anything remotely M or E, but hey, I went for it.
> 
> Part Two to follow!

A thick veil of smoke glazed the crowd as they huddled around center stage. A click of heels. A throb of bass. A silhouette no other woman could cut.

They came for the usual attraction. The most _unusual_ usual attraction.

Baatar took a drag of his cigarette and extinguished it under his boot. This was a show he’d seen many nights before- both in public and in private- but he never tired of it. 

There was something about Kuvira on stage that commanded attention, _demanded_ it, and he was all to keen to indulge. For a moment Baatar allowed his eyes to drink in the scene, her figure pulsing to the music, hair whipping left and right for men he knew would never touch her. He laughed under his breath.

The irony. 

Many times he’d wish he could kick every unworthy eye from that club, but they were customers, _paying_ customers, and he’d learned to tolerate them for the sake of the Family. 

“Rum and coke.”

_Not again_. Why customers couldn’t see Baatar was on break was beyond him. He sat on a stool at the bar, _customer_ side, leaning on the counter with his best no-fucks-to-give face. And still.

“You hear me? Rum and coke!”

Baatar Jr did not, in fact, pour drinks every waking moment. Patrons tended to have a hard time accepting this.

“ _Spirits._ ” Baatar took a slow drag of his bourbon, not bothering to tear his eyes from the woman on stage. He wasn’t about to sacrifice that view for whoever had the gall to bother him. 

“Do I look like I’m working?”

He didn’t. Baatar was dressed in his usual attire- silk dress shirt rolled at the elbows, sleeve garters and metal cuffs, a vest perhaps a half size too small for his frame (Kuvira’s doing) and metal frames that hung low enough on the bridge of his nose to glare over when a point needed proving.

He leaned one elbow on the counter and propped up his head with his hand, taking small sips of his bourbon at leisure. Bourbon on _the_ rock, one rock to be precise. 

This was Baatar’s formula for relaxation- a sweeter formula if Kuvira was anywhere in front of him- and spirits be damned if any man interrupt. 

“Listen,” he said, eyes tracing Kuvira’s moves as she swayed to center stage, “this is how this is going to go.”

With a click of her heel, she turned away from the audience.

“You’re going to stop talking.” 

Kuvira was lowering slowly now, knees bent and spread, back arched in a lovely curve. 

“You’re going to turn around.”

With a flick of her wrist, she pulled the pin that held up her hair and a tumble of black waves cascaded downward. This always hushed the crowd, as it did now. They were hers.

“And you’re going to walk away.”

Kuvira had planned to do this number with her hair loose from the start, but during their “practices” he’d convinced her otherwise. The wait intensified the reward. 

“Baatar reached for his glass and took another satisfying sip, savoring as the drink warmed his throat. As much as he wanted to glue his eyes to Kuvira completely, he could feel the presence of two men in his peripheral. They hadn’t budged.

“Pathetic fuck,” one of them whispered under their breath.

_So that’s how they want to play._

Baatar reached for the sheathe concealed at his thigh, coaxing a thin iron knife from its casing. He raised it to eye-level, turning it slowly in his hands. The neon lights from the club, pulsing reds and purples, danced on the surface of the blade. Breaking his gaze from the gorgeous figure on stage, Baatar leered just over the surface of the knife, so close that his darkening irises reflected on the metal beneath them.

The two men backed slowly away, mumbling curses to each other in a sad attempt to save their pride. Baatar? Pathetic? They didn’t know the meaning of the word. Suit jackets tarnished with liquor and sweat, faces disheveled and dirtied- were these the kind of men Wing and Wei were letting in these days? His twin brothers weren’t always the best bodyguards, but they knew better than this.

Well, it _was_ dry season. Shipments had been slow lately and the police chief’s latest crackdown wasn’t helping. Kuvira had been pushing to secure a major deal with Asami for the past few months, but the two were likely a few more casualties away from an agreement. There was his mother of course. He cringed at the thought of her late night “business meetings” with Izumi. The fraternizing helped things, softened blows, but it was still a band-aid on a bullet wound. They needed money. 

Kuvira had ideas. Logical, brilliant, terrible ideas.

Tonight she’d reminded him of a certain Iknik Blackstone Varrick, tech entrepreneur turned studio magnate, an infamous investor with expensive taste. She’d reminded him of their last meeting, an agonizingly long dinner where they’d suffered through Varrick’s favorite topic, himself, sipping well-aged wines, ignoring his mother’s brown-nosing laughter, and wishing they were just about anywhere else. He’d been watching Baatar through the entire meal with those obnoxious blue eyes that always seemed to know more than you did.

After dessert, a small slip of paper on rich cream stationary made a journey from one end of the table to the other. It passed from Varrick to his wife, Zhu Li, to Su, to Kuvira, and at last, Baatar. He’d taken one look at the simple message and crushed it under his heel. 

_Never mention this again_ , he’d made her promise. _I don’t care what he has, what he says. Never again._

But never always comes someday. 

* * *

Earlier that evening, an hour or two before Club Zaofu opened its doors to another drunken throng, Kuvira watched Baatar polish the bar. She was leaning with her elbows on the counter, head cocked back in easy confidence. It was a such a comfortable pose, boyish almost, but there was nothing boyish underneath. She wore her usual coat, a long black trench, but it was open now on a maroon lace number. A plunging neckline cupped her chest, pressing it upwards, not that she needed any assistance. Her latest. 

Baatar thanked spirits the bar stood between them or he’d be rubbing something other than the counter. _Shit. How did she do this to him? She knew she was doing this to him._

Kuvira shot him a knowing grin. “You like it?”

Baatar scoffed, turning away to search the liquor cabinet. “You know what I think.” He tried to be stern, but there was a warmth in his words he couldn’t quite kick.

“Bourbon?” Baatar spun around to offer a fresh bottle, his favorite, a gift from his sister Opal.

“Yeah, pour one out. But anyway, Baatar you should think about this.”

He readied the drinks, letting his eyes linger where they wanted. Anything to avoid the topic.

“Think about what?” 

“Come on.” She rolled her eyes and grabbed her drink when it was ready, taking a long swig for herself. “Varrick. I know…” She licked her lips, searching for words. “I know it’s not your regular game. But it wouldn’t hurt me. Hell, you know what I do- I can’t judge.”

Baatar knew exactly what she did. Kuvira was known to spend nights with others, sometimes for business, sometimes for pleasure. He’d always known, always agreed. Baatar couldn’t fathom why anyone would be so possessive. None of it mattered as long as he had her. What she did in private was her business. 

And no wonder it became her business. Kuvira was, in a word, gorgeous, a femme fatale made flesh. But Baatar? He had some notion that he was attractive, sure, but never did he imagine that any chance to, well, _fraternize_ would land on his doorstep instead of hers. 

“Shit Kuvira I know it wouldn’t hurt you.”

“I don’t know- I keep feeling you have this complex-"

“It’s not a complex!” He cut her off, starting to lose his patience. “Look I…I know it would help. He has money to burn. Bridges too. I’m sure he’d cut off Raiko in a instant if we danced for him. I just-"

Baatar steadied himself on the bar, taking in a sigh as his eyes swept the empty club. In an hour it would be packed with splashing drinks, throbbing bodies, drunken matches made on the dance floor. He tried to imagine Varrick and himself in that scene, chests pressed together, his breath on Baatar’s neck. That lavender scent he always drowned himself with. 

Baatar tried to imagine other things too- the scene that would inevitably come after. And truthfully, it wasn’t a bad daydream. Varrick was insufferable, but he wasn’t unattractive. Baatar had been with a man or two before Kuvira- that wasn’t the issue. But as he pictured them together, himself and Varrick in a sweaty heap, the magnate’s face became Kuvira’s. His hands turned to her hands. His hips became hers. And before he knew it he was pressing inside her and-

“I can’t.” Baatar realized he was out of breath now, somehow.” I don’t know why, but I just can’t.” He leaned against the bar with both hands and looked to the floor.

Kuvira took a deep breath at his answer, finished her drink and pushed the glass towards him.

“Okay.” She nodded, as if to herself. “Okay. It’s your choice to make. I just don’t want to keep you from it.”

“Darling, you always keep me from it.” He looked up with a weak smile. “Nothing you can do.”

* * *

Baatar sat at the bar sipping the last of his bourbon, relieved to have some privacy. His knife had been persuasive- no more rum and coke morons to spoil his view. Knives were good for that sort of thing.

The music in Club Zaofu was growing louder, faster, a pounding bass that shook the building and rippled his drink. This wasn’t the usual set. Baatar looked to the DJ stand, hoping some drunk ass hadn’t taken his brother’s place, but Huan was still there, deep in a reverie, head vibing to the music. _Fuck._ This was planned. 

The lights dimmed, save for a row of red floor stage lights and a single spotlight. Suddenly desperate for a better view, Baatar hopped to the other side of the bar, cutting around his staff and nearly toppling a drink to make his way to the center of the bar, directly across the long runway that snaked from center stage.

It wasn’t usually crucial to have the best view- Baatar had seen all of Kuvira’s performancesand a man had to work, after all. But this was something they hadn’t rehearsed. 

He leaned forward on the bar and folded his hands in expectation, ignoring the patrons that barked for his attention. There were plenty of others to serve them. This moment was his.

The music rose to a crescendo and Kuvira sauntered onstage. His breath hitched.

Kuvira's stage outfits were always conceal and reveal. They were sexy for everything they didn’t show as much as everything they did. But _this_. This hid nothing- all lace and cutouts, curves and chest. Deep maroon lingerie and impossible heels. The kind of thing that let her chest roll with her hips. The kind of thing she’d only wear with him, if he was lucky. Baatar had seen a hint that afternoon, across the bar, but he never imagined anything like this.

And she wasn’t dancing. Baatar was used to her typical choreography, an artful, athletic mix of poledancing and burlesque. Now Kuvira made her body the show. She made a slow walk down the runway, pausing to bend and turn, brushing her chest and hips with quick, teasing strokes. Shameless. 

Tips flew at the stage at a frantic pace, the crowd whooped and yelled. Kuvira had done everything in her power to stir their desire and it was working too well. Baatar stole a quick glance at his bartending staff, searching their faces for knowing looks, any indication that they’d known this was coming. Nothing. All of them were every bit as spellbound, but their faces gasped in shock and he whipped back to the runway.

Kuvira was sitting on the edge now, long legs dangling, crossing and uncrossing as bodyguards held back the crowd. After a pause and smirk, she jumped to the short distance to the ground, landing gracefully to cut a path through the audience, her wall of bodyguards thick on each side. 

In that moment Baatar realized Kuvira might not be walking in his _general_ direction, but directly at him. He swallowed, trying with every ounce of logic in his brain to fight this. Suddenly everything that was so easy to indulge from a distance was becoming suffocatingly, unbelievably real. 

He was still at work. He would still be professional. She’d give him a show and turn around. That was all.

But Kuvira wasn’t turning around. In minutes that felt like hours she reached the edge of the bar, leaned on the counter with her elbows just as she had that afternoon. Casual as ever, as if erotic music wasn’t pulsing around them, as if a roaring crowd wasn’t watching- 

“Hi Baatar.” 

He swallowed and opened his mouth to respond, but Kuvira was climbing now, using her heels to grip the barstool and boosting herself on the counter. She swung her legs on Baatar’s side of the bar and arched her back, curving her frame in all the right places. In seconds Kuvira gripped his arm, yanking Baatar between her legs. His face was chest height now and-

“Spirits, Kuvira. What are you doing?”

She let out a small, breathy laugh that sent a chill down his spine. “What we always do.”


	2. People Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, it's complete! I wasn't sure if I'd ever get back to finishing this fic, but somehow it happened and I'm relieved it did. 
> 
> We'll visit with all the siblings by the time this is over- and Baatar gets some closure. Enjoy!

Opal stepped into the club from the rain, folding her umbrella as she closed the door behind her. The pounding music and whooping crowds were all-encompassing, a harsh contrast from the quiet of the alleyway.   
  
“What the hell is going on?” she snapped in the twins’ general direction, but barely heard her own voice. The two were currently wrangling with a drunk who _insisted_ he’d been overcharged at the bar. As she elbowed through the crowd towards them, Opal had the distinct feeling of being underwater.  
  
_So much for crowd control._  
  
Suddenly grateful this was her first and only shift tonight, Opal grabbed Wei on the shoulder and yanked him to face her.  
  
“Opal!” Despite her white-knuckled grip, Wei’s face erupted into his usual toothy smile. He looked more like a kid at the festival than a 200 pound man apprehending a drunk. “You’re here!”  
  
“Astute observation.” She cocked her head towards Wing, who now had the miscreant in a headlock. “Smooth night so far?”

“It’s a little messy, yeah.”   
  
“A little messy?” Opal heaved a sigh and jabbed a finger towards the bar. Wei’s smile faded with the patience in her voice. “It’s a dumpster fire. Just because mom’s out of town doesn’t mean you have to let the place go to shit. This entire club is an absolute-”  
  
_An absolute…_  
  
Opal fished for words, brain wiped clean with the sight in front of her. Over Wei’s shoulder, past a sea of heads and sloshing drinks, her brother- no not that brother- the _other_ one, had his face deep in Kuvira’s chest. Her legs were locked around Baatar’s back, her head thrown back in ecstasy. Very public ecstasy.  
  
“BAATAR!” Opal's blood-curdling scream may as well been a whisper as the crowded egged the couple on. She whipped around to face Wei- and Wing as well- who’d finished with the drunk and now stood beside his twin. _Backup. Typical of them_.

  
“What,” she said, voice shaking. “What. Is. This?” Opal didn’t anger often, but when she did, it was legendary. In perfect synchrony, Wing wrapped an arm around Opal’s shoulder while Wei took her by the hand. They ushered her away from the entrance, back against a wall by the supply closet. Wing fished a flask from his pocket and shoved it in his sister’s hand. 

“Drink.” He instructed.  
  
“What?”  
  
“ _Drink_.” Wei echoed. “You’ll need it.”  
  
Opal shot them a nasty glare, but she complied, downing a swig and coughing as she realized the obvious. It was vodka. With them, it was always vodka.  
  
“Look,” Wing said, choosing his words carefully as she coughed, “we didn’t know this was going to happen tonight. Kuvira went over her set with us, the usual. No one signed off on this.”  
  
Opal leaned her head against the wall, eyes following a dusty fan as it circled overhead. She was a mess. Her red sheath dress was stained from sloshing drinks in the crowd, bangs sweaty and disheveled.  
  
“And why didn’t you stop her?” Opal asked the ceiling, already knowing the answer.  
  
Wei stepped forward. “Kuvira…she’s-”  
  
“A liability?” Opal finished for him. “Unstoppable? You talk about her like she runs this family. _We_ are this family Wei.”  
  
“No. I mean, yes, she’s not someone we say no to but,”  
  
“But what?” She fumed.  
  
“Hold on!” Wing held up a hand to silence her while his brother found the words.  
  
“Opal, she’s a draw. We’ve made triple our average tonight.” Wei eased his sister from the brick wall and the two lead her back towards the doors, the only spot in the club that had a clear view of the bar. “When she started, we knew something was off, but the place is going wild.”  
  
Wing continued. “People left that dump on central to come over here.”  
  
“It’s a draw.”  
  
“I can only imagine how much we’re making.”  
  
“And with things being slow right now-”  
  
“- this is exactly what we needed.”  
  
“You had to have heard the noise.”  
  
She had to admit, she did. When Opal turned onto the thin alley where Club Zaofu made its home, she’d heard the commotion, even through the rain.  
  
Maybe they had something right. The Beifongs _did_ need the cash. Mother wouldn’t approve, but she wasn’t here. She wouldn’t have to know.  
  
Just as Opal was beginning to convince herself of the validity of the whole circus, just as she’d began to calm down enough to start thinking of her responsibilities for the night, Opal’s face met her brother’s back. Wing had frozen in front of her- and Wei beside him. She stumbled back and brushed her hair from her eyes.  
  
The twins murmured under their breath.  
  
“Don’t look now.”

  
“Please don’t.”

  
Kuvira was no longer sitting on the bar. Baatar was no longer standing on the floor.

* * *

She hadn’t won this fight easily. Oh no. He’d done his due diligence. 

  
Baatar resisted when she pulled him against her, when she’d locked her thighs around his chest, pressed into the small of his back with the point of her heel. He’d resisted when she’d eased off the counter, when she’d slid smoothly into the small space between his body and the bar, when she’d taken his mouth in a hungry bid for control. And he’d put up a fight, some sort of fight, when Kuvira pushed him to the liquor cabinet, slamming them both against the wood and parting his legs with her own. He might have said that he’d tried to stop her hands, those long, beautiful hands, as they pushed against his chest and urged him to sit on the back counter. But he would have been lying.  
  
Kuvira had told his desire what to do and the rest of him obeyed, scrambling onto the countertop. She had turned around, giving the crowd a bow before lifting herself, with athletic ease, onto the counter in front of him. He knew exactly what to do, grabbing her by the waist and thrusting her onto his lap, those gorgeous gartered cheeks pressing and grinding against all that was holy.  
  
For a moment he’d silenced the throbbing bass of the music, blinded himself to the crowds that engulfed them, ignored the harsh scent liquor on his breath. They were alone. He’d surrendered himself to nothing but her touch, feeling her soft curves on top of him, the wet parting of her lips as she craned back to kiss him and the weight of her breasts that he caressed as she rocked for him.  
  
It was less of a dance than a pressing of bodies, a hot, impassioned tangle and Baatar was lost. Hungry. It wasn’t enough. With hands stronger than he gave himself credit for, Baatar grabbed and turned her, dipping her in his lap. Kuvira got the hint- she always did- and swung one leg over him. Facing him now, she bucked her hips towards his, colliding her warm, sensitive core against the strain of his pants.  
  
“That’s enough,” he snarled- Baatar’s noble attempt at sounding stern. The shake in his voice betrayed his weakness, a desperate, wild desire to take her right there on the counter.  
  
“You’re done?” she cooed, grinding in faster thrusts now. It was too much. All of it was too much.  
  
Kuvira threw her head back with an easy confidence, her narrowed eyes mocking his bid to stop her. Even like this, sweaty and course, all heat and want, she was gorgeous.  
  
She was everything.

* * *

  
  
Club Zaofu was a nuclear waste. Broken glass littered the tables, chairs and stools lay overturned. The floor was coated in a thin sheen of liquor- it would stick for days- despite Opal’s insistence on the contrary. Static popped from the DJ stand as Huan bent over his system, fiddling with a speaker that had been kicked in the chaos.  
  
“Ey Baatar, hand me that cable, will you?”  
  
Baatar sat at the bar, hunched over a glass of, well, water of all things. It was ten in the morning, too early for a man who’d been up since four. He raised a brow.  
  
“Your cable? You’re going to have to give me more than that.”  
  
Across the room, Huan groaned as he pulled his eyes from the console in front of him. He leaned back, pressing his hands against his back for a stretch. Huan’s frame was a long and lanky one, perfect for swaying to music and crawling under sound systems. Not ideal for fetching the cable from where it was- the back of Wing and Wei’s van, buried under liquor boxes.  
  
“It’s red. Fifty footer. Should be in a black hard case with the rest of them.”  
  
Baatar rolled his eyes. He knew exactly what Huan was talking about, but admitting that meant fetching the thing. “Where is it?”  
  
“Van.”  
  
“ _Where_?” Baatar pinched the bridge of his nose. It was too early for this. Too early for everything.  
  
“Mm probably under the gin. You know how Wing likes to overstuff that car. Efficient packing my ass.” Huan laughed in his rare, dry kind of way, a laugh that would sound sarcastic to anyone who didn’t know him well enough.  
  
But Baatar knew him. Huan found the twins more amusing than anything else. He always had a strange sort of patience with them that Baatar never understood, but he understood Huan. He knew the frustration of being pulled away from a project.  
  
So with that, Baatar set down his glass and headed for the exit. Without bothering to open the door with his hand, he leaned against it, using his weight to pass into the light outside.  
  
_Why did it have to be so bright?  
_  
Even in the narrow alleyway, a ray of sun draped between the buildings, illuminating the night before. Broken bottles, scattered trash, an abandoned wallet empty in the gutter. The usual trimmings- of a very unusual night.  
  
Opal had refused to speak to him. She’d stormed out sometime before midnight, typical of her, but Baatar wasn’t worried. He had 28 years and four months of solid credibility on his side. One bender wouldn’t knock him. Opal was severe, sure, maybe a bit pretentious, but you could reason with her. She _weighed_ things, saw life with more than one dimension. Privately Baatar had always loved her for that.  
  
And he understood the panic. He knew Opal was hearing their mother’s voice in her head, just as he was. _“Don’t ever give them something they didn’t pay for.”  
  
_He and Kuvira had given them much more than that.  
  
Baatar rounded the corner of a quiet side street. Everything was still this morning. Everything except-  
  
“You’re up early.”  
  
Kuvira leaned against the wall of a laundromat, just feet ahead of Baatar. How he hadn’t seen her he couldn’t imagine. Maybe it was the heat or the sun in his eyes. Maybe he was too damn hungover.  
  
She was dressed in her usual trench, hair pinned in its usual bun- a picture of class and composure apart from the cigarette in her fingers. He’d never know how she cleaned up so quick.  
  
Baatar stepped towards her. “You look-”  
  
“Awake?” She laughed, twisting her cigarette into a brick behind her. “You don’t.”  
  
He didn’t hear her, his mind flooded with thoughts of what to ask, what to say. “Last night…was that planned?”  
  
Kuvira smiled and flicked the butt on the pavement. She walked with him- and together the two crossed the long distance to the van in silence. So long that Baatar almost forgot the question when she spoke.  
  
“Some of it.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Last night.” She steered her walk closer to his and he wrapped an arm around her. “It wasn’t really planned, no. Well, I didn’t think I’d end up on your lap anyway.”  
  
Baatar raised a brow. “Or anywhere else?”  
  
After their bar display, Baatar and Kuvira had spent a heated hour in the supply closet. It wasn’t the strangest place they’d had sex, but it was all he could think about.  
  
Kuvira laughed and nudged him with her elbow. “Or anywhere else. No. Spirits Baatar, I just wanted to do something for you. People say things. They know what I do. They know what you don’t do.”  
  
His brow furrowed as they reached the van. “What are you talking about?”  
  
“Sex, Baatar!” Kuvira threw her arms in the air and walked backwards for a pace. “I’m talking about sex.” She stopped to point to the van. “You need something out of here?”  
  
“Don’t change the subject.” Huan would have to wait on his cable.   
  
Kuvira shrugged and leaned against the beaten white van. “Sex is a tool like anything else. Sometimes you fight. Sometimes you fuck. I’ve never thought much about it.”  
  
Baatar groaned and leaned beside her. “Obviously I know-“  
  
She threw up a finger. “I know. You get it. I’m not trying to remind you how I live. I’m just saying, I can sleep with an ass at one and take tea at two. I don’t expect you to do the same. To be honest, I should have stopped asking a long time ago.”  
  
“If this is about Varrick-”  
  
“Varrick can fuck himself.” She paused for a moment and grinned. “He probably does.”  
  
Baatar rolled his eyes.  
  
“Anyway,” she continued, “Varrick’s not the problem- it’s everyone else. Just because _I_ choose to use a skill in my repertoire doesn’t mean _you’re_ any less. People talk. I’m sick of hearing it. So I silenced them.”  
  
Kuvira’s words were calm, matter-of-fact, as if she'd told him the weather. Baatar watched her for a moment, waiting for her to speak.  
  
“That’s all?”  
  
“You’re not a joke. We’re not a joke. That’s all.”  
  
Baatar straightened up. “We?”  
  
But Kuvira just laughed and stuck a hand in his pocket, fishing for keys. She tugged them out and unlocked the van with a beep.  
  
“You were getting something?”  
  
“Oh come on…” he moaned and grabbed the keys in resignation.  
  
She smirked. “Sometimes I get to change the subject.”


End file.
